With homicides soaring so far this year and another bloody weekend in the books, Chicago police intend to announce at roll calls that overtime will be paid to officers working their days off beginning this weekend, according to a department-issued memo obtained by the Tribune.

The communication from First Deputy Superintendent Alfonza Wysinger makes clear that the initiative is targeted at curbing the growing violence. It comes at a time when the city is struggling with budget woes.

It was unclear if the overtime would be paid throughout the summer or how many officers would be tapped for the program, but the officers could be assigned anywhere in the city, the internal memo said.

The Fraternal Order of Police, which has been critical of Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Superintendent Garry McCarthy for not hiring additional officers to combat the rising violence, called the overtime initiative a "Band-Aid approach."

"We've had 1,000 officers retire in the last two years. They've (the department) hired 150," said Pat Camden, the FOP spokesman.

The potentially costly measure comes on the heels of a hot and sunny weekend in which 53 people were shot, nine of them fatally, statistics compiled by the Tribune show.

The weekend ranked as among the worst so far this year, comparable to an unseasonably hot weekend in March and Memorial Day weekend.

For weeks, McCarthy has emphasized that overall crime is down from last year. But homicides are another story. Through Sunday, 223 people were slain in Chicago, up 36 percent from the same period last year, according to a Police Department spokeswoman.

In that same period, there have been 967 shootings, up 11 percent from a year earlier.

Between Friday afternoon and early Monday morning, 16 of the weekend's shooting victims were wounded in Lawndale and Little Village, two West Side neighborhoods that fall within the department's Ogden District, the Tribune's analysis showed. From Jan. 1 through May 27, the district led the city with 21 homicides, a 110 percent increase from the same time period in 2011, according to department statistics. At the same time, shootings there jumped 51 percent, the department said.

Emanuel, while attending a news conference Monday with Gov. Pat Quinn to announce the signing of state racketeering legislation giving county prosecutors more ammunition to go after gang leaders, did not take questions about the violent weekend. The law, modeled after the federal RICO law, allows local authorities to seize gang assets such as drug proceeds and real estate. It takes effect immediately.

On Monday afternoon, about 70 people gathered outside St. Sabina Catholic Church in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood to decry the violence. The Rev. Michael Pfleger, the church's outspoken pastor, called on residents to take a stand.

"It's not just numbers. It's not just statistics," he said of the increase in homicides. "These are human beings."

For Tonya Burch, the weekend violence brings back painful memories of son Deontae Smith's fatal shooting in August 2009.

"It just brings back so much," she said as she passed out fliers advertising a $10,000 award for anyone with information leading to the arrest and conviction of her son's killer.